Mostly Macros™ From Spiders to Electronics and physics I started this site to show the world my passion for photography/science despite having serious life challenges. It is my hope to teach as well as to inspire others with life challenges to achieve goals.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

"Occupy Interviews 1"
Produced/edited by: Gabe Beasley
Interview questions asked by: Alina Beasley
WARNING! This movie has been rated by me as "PG" due to some mild language content.
First Interviews taken at Occupy Portland. Here and see what a few people at the Occupy movement had to say in there own words, why they are there, and what they think of it. I am just learning movie making so bare with me as I learn and perfect my technique and use the video abilities of my camera. I have A LOT more to add, these videos take HOURS to upload and photos take hours to process for this site. If I interviewed you you will be on this or one of the next movies on this site and my YouTube site "Mostlymacros".

"FIRST DISHES OF THE REVOLUTION"
An on site documentary by Gabe Beasley
THIS is a PEACEFUL MOVIE showing the atmosphere and attitude one usually would have experienced. I made this video to show what it might be like to take a walk through the Occupy camp during this time. I did not know anyone down there yet and was met by a peaceful and awesome people. I want to show this side of things in contrast to the constant media and YouTube buzz of videos with bad language, brawls and other sensationalism that is posted too often. That JUNK misses the point! Most of it was and is a peaceful protest and usually people were NOT yelling at each other. This was and is a very peaceful movement with important and serious messages. I am not only impressed by most of the serious Occupy movement but ALSO by the Portland Police who showed far more respect for free speech here in Portland then was shown in many other cities around the world.

IMPORTANT ART NOTE:
Some art in this movie was done
by unknown artists, signs, and beginning sign) If you do know who did
the sign at the beginning of this movie PLEASE email me as I want to
give them credit for there art which made the opening screen of my first
documentary possible).

OCCUPY PORTLAND -- RECENT EVENTS -- MOSTLY MACROS
I Really enjoyed and agreed with most of the stuff I saw
at Occupy Portland and my wife and I can be seen in this video as we got involved in the protest. When I was not taking pictures I was protesting as well. I
really think it's time that corrupt people are shown what they have done
and big changes are made in the way our government and the
super-wealthy do things. We all deserve a chance and fact is we don't all have one. There are just too many unfair situations
going on. Not only to human beings and not only in the USA. All over
the world, injustices need to be heard and not simply ignored as another
'phase' to be put down. Because it WILL NOT go away.

"Golden Bee" 2006
I took this shot with my Kodak DX7630 back when I got going in digital. It was actually shot with a compact camera to which I had added a homemade closeup lens and a flash reflector to make shots like this possible without a hot-shoe for an external flash.

MOSTLY MACROS will be changing but for the better--some things will not--I am just adding more "Independent lens" Journalistic content.
I have often pledged to not
talk about politics in Mostly Macros but for this I have made an
exception because I feel there are important issues that need to be shown. As an totally independent jornalistic
photographer I want to show the facts as much as I
possibly can since the mainstream news media so often fails at this. At Occupy Portland I took 1000s of still pictures, night and day, dozens of videos, and
several interviews my wife really helped me with. In time, many will be
posted here and or on Flicker and YouTube but I want to start here as this is my main site. Sorry about the delay if I interviewed you and you don't see it yet. Because of budget problems I am using a very small and slow Netbook (Intel Atom 1Ghz processor--equiv. to about a 2003 computer) to process my pics and even compile some videos. It took me over 4 hours to make the 12min movie "First Dishes of the Revolution" and another 3 or so to upload it to my YouTube channel. This is my first YouTube video and I plan to make more but until I can get a regular laptop with Win7 and more then 1GB of RAM it will take time. I hope that eventually I will be able to afford a full laptop/notebook that has enough memory and a fast enough processor (about $500 cost) to work with video files and my huge RAW files which are often larger then 20mb with my Nikon D7000. I am a true struggling artist and trying to save but I have to take into account other costs (life) and have not yet been able to save up enough for a computer that can handle my needs. Even though a pretty basic laptop would do it. We are still recovering from our house burning down in 2009. I am hoping that eventually my photographic and artistic works will be more recognized and I want to go into documentary film making. As for Political opinions go, that's not really what Mostly Macros will ever be about. I may say my opinion on some issues--but generally I am here to show what I photograph--the facts and report. Some people may say things which I do not agree with in videos--but that does not mean I will not show the interview. I want to report on the issues I take interest in and photograph them. I also want to do artistic/photographic projects and even get into documentary film making. It is not my intent to make another political blog or news and views site.

There are many opinions in the world and many at Occupy--I do not agree with everything everyone is saying--but it is time for corruption to end and the poor should not pay for it. I know this is not a simple issue. The spider/nature and artistic shots are NOT over! I will be doing a number of articles about spiders and other pictures as time goes on. I am just announcing here that I plan to open Mostly Macros up a bit to some political situations, declare it to also be a jornalistic blog. I have a lot of work to do on it, but given time I think this will be a good looking blog. I will continue to try to keep Mostly Macros as G-RATED as possible. If there is content in videos or articles that I think will be a problem (such as bad language in an interview) I will post serious warnings before and under the video. I have still not decided if I will post such videos in this site as I want kids and schools to be able to continue to use it for information and projects on insects and spiders. Once I get a laptop that will let me edit videos I will be able to bleep out bad language in them. If a video does have such language there will be plenty of warning and NO VIDEOS on this site will have other types of questionable content. If you read this please leave a comment about content issues, your opinion matters!

Incredibly this small Intel Atom powered Netbook was able to
cut my movie down from 720p HD which was HUGE to a smaller and more manageable
480p video. It was shot originally in wide screen HD but had to be cut
to 4:3 in order to bring it down in size so that I could work with it on
this computer (I can't watch even 720p HD on this computer direct from camera). This video
took 4+ hours to process with this computer and it will take similar
amounts of time to get other videos ready that I made at Occupy
Portland. Give it time--and they will be up there. Thank you for checking out my site and don't forget there are lots of pictures on this site! If you want to link or have any questions please email. I will try to respond to comments in time. --G.Beasley

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The first digital prints I made

THE STORY- I could not afford frames! So for my first digital prints at home, I used thrift store frames. I took all the above pictures in frames with only compact digital cameras. I modified them for macro shots with re-cycled optics. Most of these were taken with the Kodak DX-7630, Konica Minolta Z10. and sometimes a Canon A520. ALL these cameras for some reason they are stuck stopped at F8 and lower only. I do not know why even many of the most expensive compact cameras are limited to F8. It is still possible to get great shots with them. For some shots I added a plastic "aperture plug" what I came up with to make my own higher aperture setting by fitting it inside a tube before after the first lenses to increase depth of field. F8 usually actually did the job well enough back then. Now I often shoot up at F22-36+ with more and more pro-gear and digital and sometimes film SLRs but sometimes a small camera can be a good idea to keep in mind.

FULL MOON

Canon EOS 400D 70-300mm F3.5

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See my photographic experience and read about my discoveries from Bali Indonesia to right here at home in my back yard in Oregon. There are many subjects and articles in Mostly Macros. Not just spiders or bugs!

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